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An anonymous reader writes One of the developers behind special effects used in the film Avatar has inked a deal with airline check-in kiosk manufacturer BCS to implement avatars for personalized and interactive customer service. Dr Mark Sagar's Limbic IO is applying 'neurobehavioral animation' combining biologically based models of faces and neural systems to create live, naturally intelligent, and expressive interactive systems. "One of the comments levelled at self-service check in is that it has lost the human touch that people had when checking in at a traditional manned counter," Patrick Teo, BCS CEO says. "Travelling can be stressful and our aim is to make the interaction between human (passenger) and computer (check-in) as natural and helpful as possible."

Lets assume they establish a viable colony on Mars, which is so successful it outlives the parent company. Whose responsibility is it then? The Dutch government?Will they have a virtual seat at the UN?What about laws with clear legal language that specify the "earth". "globally", etc... will those laws apply to Mars?If a martian worker wants to telework in the US, will they require a visa or some sort of space permit?

It's implied that they have userland software that for some reason won't work in 64 bit windows. The asker then goes on to suggest using 6 different OS's as well, as if their finicky software has no problem with linux or windows from XP to 8. Is the real question about PAE? I feel like we are missing something here.

What other feedback mechanism is in place to prevent secrecy being used to just cover up rather than protect legitimately secret documents?

I'm of the opinion that if you give anyone the power to declare information secret if will be abused to some degree X. What can be done to keep X as small as possible while still protecting real secrets?

I don't think there is a simple answer. While Bradley Manning's alleged actions are illegal and there should be punishment, the secrecy system has no practical safeguards right now - so in general I have a hard time saying that those actions had an overall negative effect for my country.

An anonymous reader writes "CNet reports on an agreement between AT&T and the FCC which will require the telecom company to pay $700,000 to the federal government to resolve overcharging complaints. AT&T will also refund charges to customers who were switched from pay-as-you-go data plans to monthly plans after AT&T said they could keep the old plans. 'AT&T has also agreed to an extensive compliance plan (PDF), which includes: consumer notification, training of customer care representatives, and periodic compliance reports to the FCC. AT&T must also conduct additional searches of its records to identify improperly switched consumers and ensure appropriate refunds.'"

coondoggie writes "In one of the photos, the dark-haired, bearded hacker is peering into his computer's screen, perhaps puzzled at what's happening. Minutes later, he cuts his computer's connection, realizing he has been discovered. In an unprecedented move, the country of Georgia — irritated by persistent cyber-spying attacks — has published two photos of a Russia-based hacker who, the Georgians allege, waged a persistent, months-long campaign that stole confidential information from Georgian government ministries, parliament, banks and NGOs."